Motion graphics involve animating images to suit a video or film clip. A popular technique is key framing, where an object's properties are specified at certain points in time to be automatically altered between frames. Title sequences and interactive menus are common examples of motion graphics in films. They use techniques like zooming, panning, and objects moving left and right to create logos and introduce options. Stings and idents are other examples, using motion to advertise channels or grab attention. Compositing video can involve changing background footage to enhance a motion graphic overlay. The X-Men interactive menu analyzed uses distortion and rotation effects to introduce its menu buttons.

1. Oliver Toone
Motion Graphics
Motion graphics are mainly used in video footage and animation, it basically
means when you make an image move to suit the purpose of the clip. The most
popular type of motion graphic/animation is key framing,properties of an object
can be specified at certain points in time by setting a series of key frames so
that the properties of the object can be automatically altered in the frames
between key frames. Title sequences are a good example of motion graphics as
they are used in most films, how they are used in films is that a image or
something like that will appear and then the title of the film will appear along
with some other information like the producer and director of the film. Another
good example is an interactive menu, this is pretty much the same as the title
sequence but after all the information has appeared you then get options to
choose what to do next e.g. play, scenes, extras and subtitles mainly show up in
most films that are made recently. So they both use motion graphics but the
interactive menu is more in depth and gives you options. Also adverts use motion
graphics like a sting or an ident. An ident is basically just a little advertisement
for the channel you are on, it normally occurs at the start and end of the
advertisements in between programs, and keeps you updated on what channel
you are on, however a sting is normally a short clip that tries to get your full
attention so that it sticks in your mind, so if its advertising a product it will stay
in your mind and will make you think more about it for longer. Compositing video
is when you get a video and change it to suit the motion graphic that is also
playing along with is, so a video of something could be playing in the background
and the it will be changed slightly with effects so that it looks better. E.g. the
x-men interactive menu starts off with a short clip of Magneto walking forward
then he raises his hand and then the screen ripples and then a button appears
on the menu.
The Ident I picked was off channel 4 and it was pretty basic, just a couple of
objects moving to create the channel 4 logo, the main motion in the ident was
zoom, other than that it was only little things moving left and right. I would
change this so that there was more things going on, maybe a different camera
angle so that there is more detail in the background. An aerial view would be
good for this as you could see cars or people walking past. As it stands now all
you can see are cars driving closer, and then a image of the city in the
background. The channel four ident could have been created on Avid or final cut

2. Oliver Toone
pro, but if I was to go back and make my own I would do it on either Adobe
premiere pro or after effects.
For my interactive menus part of the assignment I picked the Xmen interactive
menu. It’s a pretty clear menu, clean and done well. It’s basically two main
characters appearing and doing a little move to bring the button up to pick
between the good or bad side. When the motion graphic side of the interactive
menu appears there is a little bit of distortion comes up when one of the
characters throws his hand forwards, the screen ripples out from his hand and
the rest of the screen becomes blurred and distorted, then another character
comes up and the same happens but will an electrical looking motion coming out
from her hand. This all happens in a couple of seconds so you don’t have much
time to take it all in, but if you slow it down you can really see the work that has
been put in to make this really detailed. Rotation is also a key part of this
interactive menu, after all the main motion graphic has finished, you are just
left with two buttons rotating next to each other. The advantages of video
format is that you can watch a video in the best possible quality and have a
perfect image on your screen, but if you have a machine that can’t run that full
1080p video format, it could take a while to load and the image may not render
to the full it should. That would be a disadvantage. But for the Xmen interactive
menu, the default video format is 360p so most machines can handle that video
format.